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Speaker 1: It was a couple of days after although had its

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Speaker 1: run with the locals. When I arrived, if one was

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Speaker 1: on edge, if where we went it was with guns.

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Speaker 1: So I remember there was a point when I was here,

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Speaker 1: which was like a week or so after the ALDO run,

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Speaker 1: those guys off that like we were going out somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and so folks like, well, can someone who is comfortable

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Speaker 1: using a gun stay behind? Yeah, that's what it was

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Speaker 1: at Like, yeah, yeah, it was because not all of

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Speaker 1: us like want to or can Like I can't, I'm

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Speaker 1: too scared of guns. Like I recognize that they're very important.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad I am surrounded by people who can like

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Speaker 1: defend me, but um, and I think that's important to

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Speaker 1: allow space for that too. Yeah, what kind of saying

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Speaker 1: there is really important not just for this story, but

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Speaker 1: for folks listening to this and thinking, oh funk, I

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Speaker 1: need to get guns. If you want to get guns,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and get some if you can, say le illegally.

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Speaker 1: But what you need is community. Everyone at the ranch

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Speaker 1: works hard every day to keep their project going. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: that's with a gun, most of the time it's with

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Speaker 1: a sack of crunchy al pack of food or sometimes

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Speaker 1: with a keyboard. The community that sustains the ranch is

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Speaker 1: much bigger than the people on the ground, and it's

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Speaker 1: a great illustration of the power of solidarity to sustain

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Speaker 1: a project, which, in times like today, is the world

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Speaker 1: A really needs today. Hundreds of queer people visit the

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Speaker 1: ranch every year for hundreds of different reasons. CAT takes

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Speaker 1: care of the ranches, visitors, amnities, social media gen helps

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Speaker 1: administer a Patreon account for the ranch, complete with daily

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Speaker 1: alpaca photos and updates on events. When I arrived at

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Speaker 1: the ranch in it became pretty clear that I wasn't

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Speaker 1: the only one who'd seen the tweet. Paul now THEO

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Speaker 1: both have backgrounds in combat arms, both of them before

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Speaker 1: it was they now don't think we're a great idea,

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Speaker 1: both of them waiting to use skills the state gave

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Speaker 1: them to protect people who to state wouldn't. Paul, like

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Speaker 1: Caldo and I came because of a tweet. I saw

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Speaker 1: Aldo tweet like a stop sign or something, and it said,

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Speaker 1: you know, a few years ago, I never would imagined

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Speaker 1: being on like a transgender anarchist alpaca farm, but here

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Speaker 1: I am, and I think I d med him or something.

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Speaker 1: I was like, what the funk are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: And uh. We ended up signal chatting and he explained

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Speaker 1: what was happening and what had happened the day he

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Speaker 1: was there, or one of the days he was there,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh wow, that sounds super fucked up. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna book a flight. Before they left, they picked

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Speaker 1: up another tail. We went into Westcliffe, the closest town,

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Speaker 1: for something, I think, just to the gas station. And

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Speaker 1: when we when we came back down at the query

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Speaker 1: owned by the airport, which is like three or four

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Speaker 1: miles down the road towards the town, two to three

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Speaker 1: vehicles pulled out and started following us, and one of

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Speaker 1: them pulled down the road the ranches on and we

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Speaker 1: we just drove straight and then they followed us and

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Speaker 1: we turned around two or three roads down, and then

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Speaker 1: the third vehicle that had been waiting now was waiting

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Speaker 1: for us to come back and pull in, so like

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Speaker 1: they were trying very hard to tail anyone and get

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Speaker 1: like identified. When I arrived, Paul and I slept in

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Speaker 1: the guard trailer. Well, I slept, Paul stayed up all

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Speaker 1: night walking patrols and keeping it on the fence line.

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Speaker 1: If you're familiar with Hayduke and Edward Abbs echo anarchist

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Speaker 1: novel The Monkey Ranch Gang. That's a pretty good way

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Speaker 1: to envision Paul, albeit without the misogyny and racism that

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Speaker 1: makes it pretty hard to have any respect for that

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Speaker 1: books author. Throughout the night I check in on Paul.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a large trailer, and when I did, I

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Speaker 1: look through his night vision at the strange movement in

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Speaker 1: the fields around the ranch. People seem to huddle behind

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Speaker 1: a pickup and they used the headlight to try and

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Speaker 1: blind us. Now and vision doesn't really work that way anymore,

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Speaker 1: but they moved around throughout the night thinking that we

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Speaker 1: couldn't see them, staging in different areas on the ridge

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Speaker 1: above us, with the commanding field of view and presumably

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Speaker 1: a field of fire as well. We assume they were

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Speaker 1: trying to watch us as we sat there watching them.

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Speaker 1: It was actually pretty fascinating. Um So, a house that

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Speaker 1: happens to be visible from the or another property that's

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Speaker 1: visible from from the hilltop of the ranches on here,

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Speaker 1: Like every evening it would start to get dark out

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Speaker 1: and then like fifteen or twenty cars would show up.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was like which has never happened since. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: so like fifteen to twenty cars would show up, and um,

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Speaker 1: I can't remember what precipitated it. But the second night

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Speaker 1: I was here, Oh, I know what it was. Somebody

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Speaker 1: had walked their dog and I happened to kind of

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Speaker 1: meet them down by the gate because they were walking

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Speaker 1: up the road. It was like two o'clock in the

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Speaker 1: morning during a blizzard, and I was like, this is

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Speaker 1: very unusual. So I met them down there, and um,

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Speaker 1: I happened to have like night vision gear and they

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Speaker 1: it was obviously like from them because from that point

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Speaker 1: on they would actually point vehicles at the ranch with

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Speaker 1: their headlights on the entire night from some properties that

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Speaker 1: are closer to the highway, which like is semi effective.

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Speaker 1: It makes this bloom for fifteen ft around that vehicle,

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Speaker 1: but then everything else you can just see, so it

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Speaker 1: didn't matter. Inside the house, it got harder and harder

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Speaker 1: to move over the course, in the next few days,

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Speaker 1: a support came flooding in. There was sounding the round

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Speaker 1: of ammunition plate carriers, plates, the kind of stop bullets,

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Speaker 1: and boxes of first aid supplies. One day, Paul and

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Speaker 1: I set around staging first aid it's unwrapping and preparing

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Speaker 1: to products to make the mesia to use. People messaged

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Speaker 1: every day volunteering to help. When we look them up

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Speaker 1: using some background check websites, I often use the work

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Speaker 1: to check that they weren't to trying to infiltrate their runch.

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Speaker 1: The amount of support that we've seen is largely absurd,

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Speaker 1: Like I would have never guessed that, like people would

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Speaker 1: have come out. It's hard for us. Yeah, it must

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Speaker 1: be nice to that, Like everybody fucking wants you to succeed, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like it gets us through me, Like you can't troll me. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean there are no haters that you get to

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Speaker 1: us because of how much support that we know is

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Speaker 1: out there, not only um locally, but internationally, like nationally,

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Speaker 1: Like we have people from all over the world that

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Speaker 1: have taken a moment to be like what can I do?

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Speaker 1: Like what do you need right now? Like and that

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Speaker 1: is just like you can't troll that out of me,

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Speaker 1: Like there is nothing you can say that I can't

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Speaker 1: be like, yeah, but also I've got twelve people who

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Speaker 1: would kill you for me. I don't know. The ranch

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Speaker 1: became something of a course celebra on the arm left.

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Speaker 1: The outpouring of support was incredible. In March one, we

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Speaker 1: all probably felt a little bit helpless. A summer of

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Speaker 1: uprising and VAULT had yielded a new geriatric white dude

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Speaker 1: in charge. COVID was still raging, and the cops had

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Speaker 1: shown less anger at thousands of church storm in Congress

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Speaker 1: than they did at kids holding Black Lives Matter plattards

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Speaker 1: in the street. In a time when it was difficult

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Speaker 1: to feel powerful, the ranch openly defying attempts to scare

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Speaker 1: them out of the valley gave people a sense of

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Speaker 1: success and they were more than willing to show up

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Speaker 1: and help. So, yeah, I want to talk about that

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Speaker 1: because you guys attempted to basically stock up on far

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Speaker 1: around at the time in American history when that may

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Speaker 1: have been hardest and most expensive. And what sort of

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Speaker 1: got you through was a lot of people from all

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Speaker 1: over the Internet showing for them all over the world,

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Speaker 1: like it was literally all over the world. Any fascist organizations, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got sent plate plate carriers, people did runs for Ammo,

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Speaker 1: like people would like buy Ammo like or organize something

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Speaker 1: and get Ammo and food and things and then just

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Speaker 1: drive up, drop it and leave. Because you know, not

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Speaker 1: everybody's ready to be in like an active zone where

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Speaker 1: you could get shot, but they would do runs up

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Speaker 1: to drop stuff off force like it was crazy crazy,

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Speaker 1: But that solidarity wasn't just on the internet. It was

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Speaker 1: in the valley as well. Even before the attacks on

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Speaker 1: the ranch began, the unicorns knew they were coming. They

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Speaker 1: knew because people told them, and people told them because

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Speaker 1: they cared about them and wanted them to be safe.

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Speaker 1: They cared about them because from the outset the unicorns

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Speaker 1: had made themselves an important part of that community. When

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Speaker 1: the county stopped recycling waste it could be recycled, the

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Speaker 1: Unicorns stepped up and volunteered to do it themselves. On

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Speaker 1: my first trip, I joined Penny and Jay for the

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Speaker 1: long drive into Canyon City with a rickety horse trailer

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Speaker 1: full of Bold beer cans and a truck with a

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Speaker 1: struggling transmission. The money they get paid to recycle the

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Speaker 1: cans is less than the gas they spent getting there,

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Speaker 1: but it's an important thing to do, so they do it. Hey, Garrison, here,

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Speaker 1: now that we have talked about how the siege happened,

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Speaker 1: we need to explain why. At the start of this series,

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Speaker 1: we said that this was a story that was about

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Speaker 1: the Internet, and it is. It's a story about how

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Speaker 1: the Internet has allowed a section of the American right

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Speaker 1: that's always existed to develop links and gained both power

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Speaker 1: and coherence in the last two decades, thanks largely to

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Speaker 1: online organizing. The story of how these groups got where

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Speaker 1: they are is a long one. It starts with talk

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Speaker 1: radio with Schlimbaugh and then with Glenn Beck, and the

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Speaker 1: gradual drift to Fox News, from bad journalism to outright

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Speaker 1: barking for genocide seven nights a week at prime time.

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Speaker 1: It's the story that we can't tell here and not

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Speaker 1: in its entirety, but we can show you a little

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Speaker 1: of what it looks like when that rhetoric leaves the

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Speaker 1: forums and Facebook comments and lands on the ground in

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Speaker 1: a small town in Colorado. There are two versions of

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Speaker 1: the truth in Westcliffe. There's the one that most of

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Speaker 1: you are going to hear, and then there's the one

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Speaker 1: that you can find George Gramlich purveying in his local newspaper,

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Speaker 1: the Sangree to Cristo Sentinel. The Sentinel is probably best

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Speaker 1: summarized as a print version of the Facebook comments from

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Speaker 1: some of your older relatives that you've hopefully long since

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Speaker 1: MU did. It's the guy who doesn't know when to

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Speaker 1: stop booming on about Obama at the Thanksgiving table. But

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Speaker 1: in a stream of consciousness, unedited print format, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: let George lay out what the Sentinel is about in

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Speaker 1: his own words. We didn't get much joy out of

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Speaker 1: trying to speak with him, and not for lack of trying.

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Speaker 1: I approached his office numerous times, knocking on the door

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Speaker 1: and trying to have a good old chat with George.

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Speaker 1: But luckily he did go on the record for the

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Speaker 1: Texas t l in Exile podcast. This kind of spectacular

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Speaker 1: programming two white dudes shooting the breeze is certainly a

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Speaker 1: tried and true recipe for success in the podcasting space.

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Speaker 1: But you could be forgiven for not having heard of

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Speaker 1: this particular podcast before, because even though we knew about it,

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Speaker 1: it took us forever to even find it on the

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Speaker 1: hit podcasting app Rumble Wait. Moved to Custa County from

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Speaker 1: the Anaron Back Mounds in northern New York about twelve

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Speaker 1: years ago, and uh, the wife and I were basically

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Speaker 1: political and second amended refugees. We had a couple of

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Speaker 1: friends who had moved to UH, southern Colorado, and they

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Speaker 1: said that, Uh, the most conservative county maybe in the state,

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Speaker 1: So certainly in southern Colorado is Custer County. It's about

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Speaker 1: an hour and a half south of Colorado Springs high

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Speaker 1: in the Rocky Mountains. Population dre a ranking community, stunning dues,

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Speaker 1: just simply beautiful. Um, two small towns right in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the county. Each was about five six hundred

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Speaker 1: people in it, and hardcore conservatives I'd say six of

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Speaker 1: the county's registered Republicans. But even in his conservative paradise,

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Speaker 1: George found that most folks couldn't live up to his

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Speaker 1: high standards for political engagement. After Obama got elected his

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Speaker 1: first term, slowly over that four year period, UH, interest

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Speaker 1: in the Tea Party started to diminishing as Obama was

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Speaker 1: destroying the country. Um. After we got elected the second time,

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Speaker 1: we had our first meeting since his election in January.

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Speaker 1: And normally at that point after four years, we were

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Speaker 1: againting four to sixty people showing up. At that meeting,

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Speaker 1: only twelve people showed up and it was doom and gloom.

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Speaker 1: You know, Obama is destroying the Conscire's nothing We can

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Speaker 1: do blah blah blah. We started talking long pool. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've got to keep cuts the county red and uh

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Speaker 1: and uh. And the fact came up which has been

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Speaker 1: a problem in the county forever, was that the local newspaper,

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Speaker 1: in the only newspaper in the county was extremely liberal paper.

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Speaker 1: And we have done research over the years and we

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Speaker 1: found out that a corporal America, this phenomenon of was

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Speaker 1: common that the rural counties that tended to have liberal papers.

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Speaker 1: And it's just because the lists vegetate to that media

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Speaker 1: and they know they could have an influence on the

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Speaker 1: populations via that. So I mean, I mean it was over.

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Speaker 1: We went home and on the way home I turned

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Speaker 1: to I said, we're gonna start a paper. So uh

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Speaker 1: next day, I like, It's been a whole day building

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Speaker 1: on a business plan on how to start a print

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Speaker 1: and conservative newspaper in the rural community. Now, we couldn't

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Speaker 1: find the research that George is talking about, and that's

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Speaker 1: probably because it's not true. What we can find is

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Speaker 1: that dred largely small newspapers closed in the past fifteen years.

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Speaker 1: To learn more about the newspaper business in southern Colorado,

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Speaker 1: we spoke to George's arch rival, the publisher of the

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Speaker 1: only other publication in the west, or at least the

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Speaker 1: only other one in the valley, Jordan Hedberg, You are

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Speaker 1: the editor of the owner and publisher, and I could

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Speaker 1: barely spell my own name, so the publisher of the

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Speaker 1: Wet Mountain Tribune newspaper. Jordan's and George aren't exactly best pals,

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Speaker 1: largely thanks to George's attacks on Jordan's and his publication.

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Speaker 1: We asked Jordan to give us a sense of the

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Speaker 1: competition in the local media market and for his overall

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Speaker 1: thoughts on the Sentinel. I think it's his lies. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's the problem with the Sentinel. I don't see the

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Speaker 1: media spaces as zero sum game. Um, if somebody wants

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Speaker 1: to have a openly conservative newspaper in this town, and

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Speaker 1: I said, there's plenty of readers, Um, it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: compete with me because we do just community news and

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Speaker 1: we always have since three so we've been here for

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Speaker 1: a little while. I don't see it as a zero

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Speaker 1: sum game until you start lying about things because you're

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Speaker 1: in what you perceived to be a power struggle. So

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Speaker 1: that's the problem of the Sentinel. There's there's no problem

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Speaker 1: with the Sentinel overall, other than that they like to

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Speaker 1: tell lies two kind of justify their existence. Yeah, Jordan's

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Speaker 1: take on the founding of The Sentinel, whose logo prominently

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Speaker 1: features a bald eagle on the cover. If you hadn't

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Speaker 1: quite picked up on the vibe yet, it was a

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Speaker 1: little different. You know. They got started in their minds

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Speaker 1: during the Tea Party movement to combat hyper liberal newspaper.

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Speaker 1: But they only labeled the Tribune that because they needed

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Speaker 1: an enemy. You know, they were they're very whipped up

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Speaker 1: about Obama getting elected and um, at the time, there

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Speaker 1: had been that Aurora shooting, and so the real reason

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Speaker 1: they really got started was when Carroo put a assault

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Speaker 1: weapons magazine ban into place so you couldn't have anything

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Speaker 1: that could fire more than fifteen rounds after the Aurora

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Speaker 1: Theater shooting, which was I guess ten years ago this week. Um,

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Speaker 1: So that that was one of the big things that

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Speaker 1: really got him started, was what they felt like an

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Speaker 1: attack on weapons. But they did it in a community

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Speaker 1: that's very you know, pro Second Amendment. I mean at

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Speaker 1: the time it was probably Republican. These days it's fifty

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Speaker 1: but still a majority Um. Even the moderates and most

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Speaker 1: Democrats probably have guns and are okay with the idea

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Speaker 1: of that, But they had a much more militant style saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: we should be allowed to arm ourselves with whatever. Um.

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Speaker 1: But again they still had to create a bunch of

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Speaker 1: lies locally saying that. Um. You know, at the time,

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Speaker 1: it was the former owner that the Tribune was hyper liberal, communist,

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Speaker 1: you know, against guns, which wasn't the truth. Gun rights

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Speaker 1: and the threat of gun confiscation have been a constant

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Speaker 1: source of profitable panic for agitators on the right for decades. Now.

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Speaker 1: In Westcliffe, that doesn't really seem to be much controversy

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Speaker 1: about guns. People who want them have them, and people

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Speaker 1: who don't don't. On my drive from the airport to

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Speaker 1: the ranch, I stopped at a couple of gun stores,

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Speaker 1: and I've seen people lining up to by magazines, guns

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Speaker 1: and other things that they'd worried about the government banning,

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Speaker 1: which seems a very odd reaction to a mass murder

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Speaker 1: in your state. But once I got to rural Colorado

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Speaker 1: and passed Mantique's gun room, there wasn't really any of that.

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Speaker 1: It was just some old dudes deplaning about the relative

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Speaker 1: value of different big bore revolvers and then sks, which

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Speaker 1: has been entirely violated by someone's attempt to make it

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Speaker 1: more modern. George apparently has seen an earlier mass shooting

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Speaker 1: in Aurora as an opportunity for the liberals and rhinos

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Speaker 1: he's so loath to take away his guns, and an

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Speaker 1: opportunity for him to take a stand against him. He

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Speaker 1: decided to take a stand at a place where no

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Speaker 1: one really disagreed with him, and it gainst a thing

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Speaker 1: that wasn't really happening. But nonetheless he decided to write

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Speaker 1: the troops and hold well, will let him describe what

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Speaker 1: he held about. I don't know, six or seven years ago,

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Speaker 1: TL the lists and called Ronald En Denaver passed the

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Speaker 1: gun uh gun laws, and they one of them was

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Speaker 1: the magazine limitation law, and before there's no limitation, and

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Speaker 1: they passed awards that you can't have any you can't

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Speaker 1: buy any new magazines. Was more than fifteen rounds in it.

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Speaker 1: But they all went their grandfather. Now, during this the

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Speaker 1: legislative session, as you as you remembered, the whole state

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Speaker 1: was up and arms about this. I mean it was

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Speaker 1: demonstrations in Denver. I mean, uh, we were passed off

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Speaker 1: and the SLPs passed it. So Westcliffe has uh July

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Speaker 1: fourth parade that we actually took over the sessil took

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Speaker 1: over into a couple of years. Um and uh and

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Speaker 1: there's usually maybe twenty five entry the horses who know,

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Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, George. Let's dwell on that for

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Speaker 1: a minute. When when I mentioned that I came down

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Speaker 1: there and then you had like five or six hundred

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Speaker 1: people in this parade, Um, I think it might have

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Speaker 1: got glossed over. How big are these towns to start with,

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Speaker 1: because it's it's basically a combination of Silver Cliff and

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Speaker 1: West Cliff, right, Yeah, each town has about five people

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Speaker 1: out of five hundred people out of out of a

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Speaker 1: total of a thousand people. I mean you you can

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Speaker 1: you can describe it, but describe that to the listeners

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Speaker 1: for a little bit about, um, what that parade looks

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Speaker 1: like versus how many people are on the sidewalk. YEA Similarly,

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Speaker 1: in and the Tea Party had an entry and we

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Speaker 1: usually had maybe fifteen twenty people march down with you know,

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Speaker 1: gads and flags and stuff. But that that those gun

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Speaker 1: laws the MacMan I mean just energized the sentinel tremendously.

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Speaker 1: So we decided a couple of months before July fourth

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Speaker 1: that we were gonna turn the Tea Party parade entry

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Speaker 1: into a Second Amendment protests UH entry. So we printed

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Speaker 1: up flyers and uh we innovated Southern Colorado every gun, shot,

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Speaker 1: park shot everything with thousands of flyers come to the

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Speaker 1: Western July fourth thing and told them what part to

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Speaker 1: go to, what place to go to, and protested the

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Speaker 1: PS laws and stuff like that and so uh uh

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Speaker 1: So that morning the priest starts of Dena Cross. Uh

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Speaker 1: we set up shop in front of uh. We told

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Speaker 1: the FRED organizers and we might have some more people coming.

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Speaker 1: So we've had a field where we could set up,

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Speaker 1: and we set up there and we had a couple

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Speaker 1: of thir We had three or fours the guys there

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Speaker 1: to check guns. We said, you know, you could bring

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Speaker 1: uh long rifles, no magazines. They got to be clear shoulder.

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Speaker 1: Uh carried on the polster pistols, you know. And we

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Speaker 1: had to holp us people to check for safety and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so we had no idea how

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Speaker 1: many people are gonna show off, And normally there's twenty

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Speaker 1: five entries and maybe a hundred fifty people in the parade,

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Speaker 1: maybe two hundred total, and all of a sudden, uh

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Speaker 1: on Main Street where our field was, around eight thirty,

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Speaker 1: there was a traffic jam that went down like a

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Speaker 1: mile both ways, and people were turning into our part

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Speaker 1: a lot field there and going nowhere else, and they

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Speaker 1: kept calmon and common and common and common. This went

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Speaker 1: off for an hour and a half. The Sharon for

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Speaker 1: freaking out. We had over five hundred heavily armed citizens

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Speaker 1: there that morning, with about twenty fo military trucks and

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Speaker 1: a half we had a Korean War half tract there

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Speaker 1: with a fifty cow on top. Jildan, the Tribune publisher,

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Speaker 1: those things a little bit differently. So, but right before

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Speaker 1: the sentinel got started, they were like, hey, we're gonna advertise,

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Speaker 1: and they did it all across the state. They said

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Speaker 1: bring your big black evil guns to um Custer County.

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Speaker 1: And the problem is is, you know, that was the issue.

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Speaker 1: It was this is a family event and so ever

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Speaker 1: since then. So what happened was in response, the Republican

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Speaker 1: town Council in the Republican Chamber of Commerce all said

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Speaker 1: we're not going to have a parade we we can't

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Speaker 1: have a bunch of Randos showing up right after the

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Speaker 1: Aurora Theater shootings, carrying massive amounts of firepower, even if

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Speaker 1: you claim it's unloaded or whatever. We just can't have

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Speaker 1: that for a family event. And so the thing is

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Speaker 1: is they took out a permit and did the parade themselves.

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Speaker 1: So that's really how things. So Fourth of July for

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Speaker 1: them is sort of their anniversary every year. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're very they really consider that whole thing to be

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Speaker 1: that way. But that's really what happened. Now, that's a

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Speaker 1: conservative area. There's no bravery, Marchi, assault rifles, sucoustic County. Now,

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Speaker 1: if they've done in downtown Denver where guns are banned

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Speaker 1: or at least those types of guns, at least you

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Speaker 1: could say they had a backbone and down. But it's

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Speaker 1: not MLK gang. So the problem the Sentinel is the lives.

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Speaker 1: You know, if they're just a conservative paper, fine, they're

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Speaker 1: allowed to have their opinion, but they tend to tell

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Speaker 1: lies constantly. George had miraculously managed to turn a mass

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Speaker 1: murder into a sort of pseudo victory parade for a

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Speaker 1: cultural war he was fighting every day with his newspaper

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Speaker 1: Soon enough, and largely thanks to this parade, the culture

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Speaker 1: war will be opening a whole new front on this

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Speaker 1: tenaceous unicorn ranch. Of course, the Sentinel has opinions about

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Speaker 1: the ranch and transpoke in general. When we arrived in Westcliffe,

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Speaker 1: Garrett and I grabbed a coffee at Peregrine Coffee Roasters,

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Speaker 1: long term friends at the ranch and supporters of me

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Speaker 1: staying up all night with Paul and an up all

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Speaker 1: day with Penny and j. We also grabbed a copy

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Speaker 1: of the Sentinel from the dispenser, pulled up a chair

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Speaker 1: and started a live reading. Even after a year of

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Speaker 1: me being aware of their rhetoric, it did not disappoint.

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Speaker 1: So I just I just suched the word gender on

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Speaker 1: the Sentinel's website. We got a We got an article

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Speaker 1: on social emotional learning, which is basically the al right,

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Speaker 1: trying to read ran there like a critical race theory ship,

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Speaker 1: but make it even broader um. And we do have

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Speaker 1: an article from January of last year called a Meat

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Speaker 1: at the Gun toting tenacious unicorns and happy Valley. That's

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Speaker 1: a let's click on that and see what the Sentinel

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Speaker 1: has to say. What is this? What is this guy's

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Speaker 1: name the Eric Siegel. Yes, High Country New. Oh that's

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Speaker 1: what they've done. They have just plays played rights piece

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Speaker 1: from High Counry News. Oh, so they just stroll this

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Speaker 1: from somewhere else. If we're stopping here to point out

430
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: that the Sentinel does this a lot. It's not clear

431
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 1: if they have permission or not, but they seem to

432
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: dedicate at least half their print pages to aggregating content.

433
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,719
Speaker 1: It's mostly from the fire right of the Internet. Notable

434
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: examples include a really spectacularly racist piece on anti material

435
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 1: rifles which we will not read, and numerous fire right

436
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: commentary sites which turned shreds of news into a thousand

437
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: words of panic rundering opinion. Anyway, let's see what they

438
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: have to say about the pretty good article of Eric

439
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: Siegel wrote about the Unicorn ranch for High Country News.

440
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: Note the Sentinel is prodominantly featured in this article negatively,

441
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: of course. Hold onto your cowboy hats, fellow patriots, this

442
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: is one wild ride. For the first time ever, we

443
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: are warning our readers that the article below is very,

444
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 1: very disturbing in many aspects. It may not be appropriate

445
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: for some folks or children. Are apologies, but the citizens

446
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: of this wonderful county need to know how the county

447
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: has been betrayed so apparent, I guess the article is

448
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: kind of a Yeah, so they do have an edit

449
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: at the bottom that that the central Road based on

450
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,719
Speaker 1: the article. Well, folks, the veil has been lifted. For

451
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: those of you who haven't seen or experienced left wing

452
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: fascism here it is from Biden to Polis and all

453
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: the way down to this hypocritical bunch of hate filled xenophobes.

454
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 1: They are all the same, felled with hate, paranoia, solt righteousness, intolerance,

455
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: and the desire to rule and control, and obsessed with violence.

456
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: Their radical, narrow minded view of the world and our

457
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: rural community is the only allowable viewpoint. All of a sudden,

458
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 1: the citizens of Custer County are fascists and Nazis. This

459
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: fascist retorically George himself, a transplant from outside the valley

460
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: who has tried to transform local politics. It's referring to

461
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: it's what sparked off the confrontation that bought me Aldo

462
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: and Pull to the ranch last year. Yeah, so that

463
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: one wasn't even a parade. What it was was it

464
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 1: was a protest on the fourth of July because during

465
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: COVID they weren't doing any parade things, so they just

466
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: did this as a protest, right, and so the sheriff

467
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: and everybody, I mean, you couldn't distinguish it from a

468
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 1: Fourth of July prade, except there wasn't. I don't think

469
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: the fire department and stuff took you know, the Sheriff's

470
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: office and the fire department didn't take part. And it

471
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:37,879
Speaker 1: was just it was really a bunch of people with

472
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: on horses, marching guns, stuff like that. But the flags

473
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: were a little more disturbing. You know. Most of the

474
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: American flags were replaced with three percent flags or the

475
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: thin blue line flags. There was a couple of Confederate flags,

476
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: always fun. I still can't figure out I still can't

477
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: figure out the Confederate A long way south here. Yeah,

478
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: you know, but there is that lost cause myth that

479
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: does take place here. Yes, and and you know they'll

480
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: say it's not a racist flag, but it absolutely isn't.

481
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: This was the parade the unicorns called out, and this

482
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: was what put them at the center of graham Lets

483
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: conspiracy riddled hate machine. Jordan gave us a little more

484
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: insight into exactly who those fascist groups were the people

485
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: that the Sentinel brought to town for their little protest parade.

486
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: George grime Like is a member of Oathkeepers. We've been

487
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: able to confirm that through not only himself, but Thompson

488
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: Writers had an investigative reporter that confirmed that for us

489
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 1: um so, Oathkeepers is a big one three percent. You'll

490
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: see some of those shirts around that the two of

491
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: them are kind of scenoymous. That none of it's super organized.

492
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of like saying that Antifa's superorganized.

493
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: It's it's very decent. The problem is is that they

494
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: do write extreme things, and I think people like um

495
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: myself and then you know, definitely the Unicorn ranch suffers

496
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: because they they can't really spread their message without an enemy.

497
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: And you were asking earlier how how much influence do

498
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: they have? Yeah, not a lot. They have about eight

499
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: hundred subscriptions from what I can tell. Some receipts accidentally

500
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: got put in my box versus there because we're the

501
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: wet Mound Publishing company. Yeah, um, and they're the Mountain

502
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: Publishing the post Office at all their glory occasionally give

503
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: me a win, but you know, they're eight hundreds to

504
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: maybe a thousand by their own own numbers. The Sentinels

505
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: stands on vaccines will definitely not shock you, considering everything

506
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: else we've said about George and the Sentinel thus far.

507
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: So this comes from market ticket doggal effectiveness. The primary

508
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: infection against to be a critical or fatal COVID nineteen

509
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: reinfection with ninety seven point three irrespected the variant of

510
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: primary infection or reinfection and were similar and with no

511
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: evidence for waning some results. We found the subgroup analyzes

512
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: for those less than fifty years of age. Got it? No,

513
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: let me explain it. If you've got COVID noteen lived,

514
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: you are more than nine certain with a very narrow

515
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: confidence band protected against a severe or fatal d in

516
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: hospital dead second infection, even though coronavirus is always mutate.

517
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to check really quickly if that's

518
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: what they're saying and normally yet they've quite a discort

519
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: of out of context and there is no evidence of

520
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: protection ever goes away. That is not what the quote says.

521
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: If you look at the JAB, I think you get

522
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: the picture. It's pseudo science babble, transphobia and general boomer

523
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: anti woksm oh, there's a piece here said about the

524
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: You know, the U. S. Army is really struggling to

525
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: recruit right now. Right. Imagine you're an eighteen year old

526
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: white Christian male in Georgia with a family history of

527
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: military service. As you progress through your teen years, you

528
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: watch Confederate statutes being torn down, a military basis being renamed,

529
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: endless media and elitist demonized ation of your culture as

530
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: racist and deplorable and backwards, and military and civilian leadership

531
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: that thinks diversity and inclusion, a fewer white men. It

532
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: is the best thing since slight bread, slice bread? Would

533
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: you volunteer? Identity politics works both ways. Trash my tribe

534
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: and I won't associate with you, let alone risk my life.

535
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: Shouldn't be a shock then that those expressing a great

536
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: deal of trust and confidence in the military dropping today.

537
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: So that's why, and no one wants to do in

538
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: the military because we're not doing enough confederacy. Wow, there's

539
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: a whole piece on how to protect your wealth. But

540
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: well no, there's a whole section of this called the

541
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: Second Amendment corner. Okay, interesting, there's a picture here of

542
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: a bunch of a t F agents obviously armed in

543
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: plate carriers and a Pride flag. And this this is

544
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: a joke, This is a funny, and it says corporate

545
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: wants you to find the difference between this picture and

546
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: this picture, and then it says they're the same picture.

547
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: So I guess the A t F are out there

548
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: enforcing pride. The little meme comic that we'd seen was

549
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: frankly bizarre. The two pictures on this comic were an

550
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: A t F A visit. This particular A t F

551
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: A visit got hyped up all over the right wing

552
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: media as a raid, a gun grab, etcetera, etcetera. In fact,

553
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: what happened was a dude purchased a lot of guns

554
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: and the A t F came by to check if

555
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: he had sold any of them. It's not routine, but

556
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: it's not super uncommon either. Anyway, on one side was

557
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: a photo of the A t F agents and plate

558
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: carriers with rifles, and on the other was a Pride

559
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: flag because apparently, in Custer County, the existence of queer

560
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: people is a similar oppression to the people who did

561
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: Waco coming to your door. Jordan's has also noted this

562
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: turn in the rhetoric of the Sentinel for two years.

563
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: Their sole purpose was to rail against COVID restrictions. Now,

564
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: with many of those gone, along with twenty two people

565
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: from the county where the average ages sixty, they've pivoted

566
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: to culture war topics when election fraud and COVID don't

567
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: seem to have stuck. Now it's just we're against um.

568
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: It was all you know, the big live the election

569
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: was stolen, critical race, therey, even though it's a bunch

570
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: of crap, and unfortunately you know, the Unicorn match if

571
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: there's if there's in the past, it was more against

572
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: anybody that was gay, um, but there's not many of

573
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: those in the community more because they kind of got

574
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: run out and sent to know, you were seeing like

575
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 1: it just conserves in general really hostile. Yeah, but now

576
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: it's you know, totally on the trans um. And again

577
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: it kind of fights back against the conservative upbringing that

578
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: I had, which was as long as you're not interfering

579
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: with me, then there's really no conflict. We've talked about

580
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: queer extermination as rhetoric before, and it's very evident to

581
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: that what we are seeing here is a version of that. Fortunately,

582
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: George doesn't seem to have stuck the landing, But it

583
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that this stuff isn't dangerous. It goes without

584
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: saying that the unicorns weren't trying to trans anyone's gender

585
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:14,280
Speaker 1: from their ranch. They were just trying to be left alone.

586
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: It's not their actions that people disagreed with, it's their

587
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: mere existence. And sadly, while the attack on the ranch

588
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: might have failed, other attacks on queer folks haven't, and

589
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: that makes havens like the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch even more important.

590
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,919
Speaker 1: Today next episode, we're want to talk about what brought

591
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 1: people to the ranch and how to make a queer

592
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: home in Rule America. It Could Happen Here is a

593
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool

594
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,

595
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,399
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,

596
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

597
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at

598
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening